Artists & Scholars

Scholarship

John Fisk ’65, professor emeritus at Southern Illinois University and retired pediatric orthopedic surgeon, was lead contributor to The Atlas of Spinal Orthotics (Exceed Worldwide, 2017). The atlas is an open learning (free-to-use) medical textbook covering the history and use of spinal orthotics in the treatment of many disorders and injuries and is a much-needed resource in underserved regions of the world. The textbook is available free online.

Summer 2017

Art

Lee Running, associate professor of art, won a monthlong artist residency at Jentel Arts, a private family foundation in Sheridan County, Wyo. She was one of six people selected from more than 100 applicants.

Books

Robert Vas Dias ’53 authored Black Book: An Assemblage of the Fragmentary (Shearsman Books, 2016) with British artist Julia Farrer. It’s the first major collaboration between a poet and artist reacting to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

David Cook-Martín, professor of sociology, assistant vice president for global education, and senior international officer, won the American Sociological Association’s 2017 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award for his book Culling the Masses: The Demographic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas (Harvard University Press, 2014).

Brandi Petersen Janssen ’98 addresses common myths in Making Local Food Work: The Challenges and Opportunities of Today’s Small Farmers (University of Iowa Press, April 2017). By listening to and working with people trying to build a local food system in Iowa, Janssen uncovers the complex realities of making it work.

Brandy Agerbeck ’96 writes that a tool to improve decision-making, reduce overwhelm, think critically, and communicate more clearly is at your fingertips — drawing. Her new book breaks down the complexity of visual thinking into 24 accessible and enjoyable concepts called “idea shapers.” Learn all the great thinking you can do with simple shapes, lines, color, scale, and proximity. See TheIdeaShapers.com.

A group of Grinnellians attended the annual conference Feb. 3–4, 2017, hosted by the Iowa-Illinois-Nebraska Stem Partnership for Innovation in Research and Education, part of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation, at Iowa State University. Alfredo Colina ’18 was recognized with the People’s Choice Award for his research poster, “Bacterial characterization of a hog confinement located in Poweshiek County and a potential source of antibiotic resistance bacteria discovered.” Glorianne Dorce ’17 received second place for best research poster, “Detecting concentrations of steroidal hormones in water samples through optimized SPE/UHPLC/MS method.” Queenster Nartey ’16 was recognized with the Outstanding Alumni Award. Nartey moderated a discussion panel on student STEM identity.

J.R. Osborn ’97 has published a cultural history of the Arabic writing system with a focus on aesthetics and technology (Harvard University Press, 2017). It begins with the formalization of Arabic calligraphic tradition in the 10th century and ends with the encoding of Arabic for digital computing at the end of the 20th century.